tdekeyser

Since we do not understand God, then I will rely on my senses, intellect AND ethics.

What God does/did is UNETHICAL, therefore I wil never worship Him.

Ockhamite

Seebs....

If your 8 year-old says that Casper the Ghost grabbed her shoes and threw them out into the yard. Why do you not call the ghostbusters.

seebs

Because my beliefs, based on a lot of observation of the world, suggest an explanation I prefer.

I am not, however, required to be dogmatic in my preference for naturalistic explanations, so I'm not, and I allow for the possibility that they could be wrong. They're wrong often enough even with *only* naturalistic explanations; allowing for one more way they could be wrong hardly hurts, and it helps me remember to keep an open mind.

Oh, and also, the ghostbusters don't actually have a phone number. If they were in business, and I had evidence a bit more credible than an eight-year-old with a strong bias against certain other explanations, I might call 'em - although it's unlikely, since I haven't seen any convincing evidence yet.

Ockhamite

Seebs......

I want to thank you for this discussion. You have been honest in your answers. Not once did you quote bible scripture or claim god's authority. You are a theist, but the door is open.:notworthy

seebs

It seems to me that quoting scripture would hardly persuade you. It never persuaded me; I believe scripture *because* it matches my experience of God. As to God's authority, I don't *HAVE* it; how could I claim it? There are matters in which I will claim such authority, but only rarely; there are times when I do things, not because I have a reason to, but because I feel myself being moved, like a chess piece. Perhaps I'm just deluded, but I have to say, these delusions are extraordinarily helpful and kind ones, often well beyond my personal limits (I am not a patient man, when left to my own limits), and I will accept them as truth until convinced otherwise.

Family Man

But it is not the lack of a *complete* explanation that bothers me. It is the lack of a *consistent* explanation. I realize that there are explanations that exist may be worth something to you -- and that is your right -- the vast numbers of god conceptions (even in the Christian religion alone) that are floating around there suggests to me that god is a human construct, not a real being.

seebs

Hmm. I dunno; I think it's like the blind men and the elephant. But I do share your annoyance with the sheer variety of beliefs people form.

Still, I have observed that, given a real thing, people form all sorts of contradictory beliefs about it.

Perchance

Good morning, seebs.

I haven't heard it phrased that way most of the time. "God is unknowable" is usually the only version given, without an explanation of the thought process behind it. Could you give me an example of some of the other beliefs that the "unknowable" concept depends on?

That's part of my point, though. If something is claimed to be outside of time, then that, too, is a claim of knowledge. God may be unknowable, but someone felt that he or she knew enough to make the positive claim that his or her deity is outside of time.

That's why I'm not sure why so many Christians promote the position that God is unknowable. It seems to provide the short road straight into agnosticism. If you can't "know" anything about God, then where do omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and other traits assigned to him/them come from? Lucky guesses? Dependence on arguments that themselves falter against the claim that God is unknowable? Things the person arguing them would like to be true?

It's certainly not the only contradiction I find in some concepts of god, but it's one of the most basic ones.

-Perchance.

seebs

Well, as an example, the claim that God "transcends" the physical world is one that I see as leading to "unknowable".

Because the book sez so.

In my case, I came to collate a bunch of experiences together and say "these experiences would be well-explained by a single entity with a few characteristics". After a while, I concluded that this entity sounded a *lot* like a god. I did some poking around, and concluded that the Christian description fit my experiences best. Given that, I am inclined to take the Bible as a reasonable starting point; information it provides about God or morality is generally "pretty good". However, I have also noticed that it's full of long rambling stories that are only marginally relevant, and requires a fair amount of poking about to find stuff.

Or, in some cases, personal experience, and, most importantly, faith.

Omnipotence is sort of a gimme for a being believed to have created everything. There may be limits, but I doubt I'd comprehend them. Omnibenevolence... Tougher, because of Problem Of Evil. Okay, let's start by dividing; some Christians convert 'cuz they're told, others "come to believe". The latter category are almost always different in some way, and generally associate knowledge of God with a deep-seated feeling of joy. This seems to suggest benevolence; I cannot say why. Once we are looking at benevolent, powerful, spiritual, things, we start thinking in terms that suggest that it may be reasonable to believe claims like this.

When I say "unknowable", I mean only "I cannot have complete or certain knowledge". However, I can form beliefs, and I can confirm or deny some bits of them with some reliability.

Family Man

You're comparing apples and oranges. The elephant in the story is a passive and indifferent character; he doesn't care if he's misunderstood.

God, on the other hand, wants us -- if the propaganda is to be believed -- to find him. He is supposively an active and intelligent character who has both the ability and desire to be understood, at least as far as our human intellect would allow us? Yet somehow he acts as the elephant does. Could that possibly be that the reason we are "blind" about God is because he doesn't exist?